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I need to vent about Shutterfly...

I placed an order on September 3rd for 6 books. 5 copies of one book, and 1 copy of another book. I received 3 copies of the first book on September 17th, and then the other 2 of the same book a week later, on the 24th.
Last Friday, the 21st, the 6th book was still "In Production". I sent an e-mail to customer services asking when it will ship out?
No answer.
2 days ago, the 26th, I sent another e-mail to customer services with the same question.
No answer.
Yesterday, the 27th, I got an e-mail asking me to take a survey about how I thought customer services handled my query...
I answered the query accordingly.
No reaction.

I decided to contact Shutterfly via their live chat - this is what was said just a couple of minutes ago:

Hitesh S.: Hi, my name is Hitesh S.. How may I help you?Therese Holmqvist: I wonder when you will ship the last book in my order? Order #001032551898-7000212Hitesh S.: I?ll be glad to assist you with the information, Therese.Hitesh S.: Please give me a moment while I have check on it.Hitesh S.: Thank you for your patience!Hitesh S.: As I have checked it is an international order it takes 15-20 days ,however I would request you to wait till the estimate arrival of the order till 2nd October.Therese Holmqvist: No no no! I've already received 5 of the 6 books! The last and 6th one is still "In Production" according to you! Therese Holmqvist: Your system updates and tells the customer when the product is shipped, but this one is NOT! And the order was placed 25 days ago!Hitesh S.: I would request you to wait till the estimate arrival 2nd October.Therese Holmqvist: Where does it say that the last part of my order is estimated at october 2nd?Hitesh S.: As I have checked the estimate arrival for the order is Between Sep 20, 2012 and Oct 2, 2012 , however if you don't receive the order you can contact us.Therese Holmqvist: The order staus for my order on my order update-page says that shipment 2 and 3 are estimated between the dates you are stating, but they are already here!!! Shopment 4 says "In Production"!!! How can you tell me that book is shipped?Hitesh S.: I can understand your frustration , however due to huge back log of orders last week we were little behind for shipping out the orders.Therese Holmqvist: I ORDERED THIS SEPTEMBER 3RD!!! You can take my order, and you can take my money, but you can't give me real answers!!! Therese Holmqvist: I've also sent two e-mails to customer service the last week, but NOBODY has gotten back to me at all! I'm beyond frustrated! I'm angry and I want my book to at least show as shipped!!Hitesh S.: If you want I will go ahead and place the reorder for safer side.Therese Holmqvist: I'm sorry - I don't know what you mean?Hitesh S.: I will place the reorder for the photo book.Therese Holmqvist: OK. So it's really not in production yet?Hitesh S.: As I have checked the order was delayed ., however you will receive the order by Monday.Therese Holmqvist: You will re-order the book and I will have the order by Monday? To Sweden?Hitesh S.: I will not place the reorder I would request you to wait till Monday. Therese Holmqvist: This is unbelievable... If I don't have this book by Monday, I'm taking this further. Thank you.Hitesh S.: I understand how important it is for you to receive this item on time and I'm sorry you haven't received it yet. Hitesh S.: According to the detail you should receive the order by Monday.Hitesh S.: Is there anything else I can help you with today?Therese Holmqvist: I would like to receive that "detail", since my account does not tell me this. Can I get an e-mail confirming the shipping?Hitesh S.: Unfortunates we do not have a tracking details for international orders.Therese Holmqvist: But you have to have confirmation on the package leaving your facilities?Hitesh S.: We understand your concern but unfortunately we do not have an tracking details for package.Hitesh S.: I would request you to wait till Monday.Therese Holmqvist: Thank you for absolutely nothing! Hitesh S.: I am really sorry but you should receive the order till 2nd October.

I absolutely hate it when I have to talk to people who sound like a broken record!! I had to giggle when I read this because I have been there so many times (with different places) and I feel your pain! I hope this will get resolved for you! I am not using Shutterfly anymore, Blurb it will be for me!

Oh how FRUSTRATING!!!! Wouldn't it be nice if they could just be honest. That's all. Be honest. If they made a mistake, just admit it! I do hope it arrives soon and you get some sort of compensation for the run around...

It sounds like their system is not coping. How very frustrating for you. I also feel for Hitesh as he/she can only report what she sees on the system. I, too, don't understand how you can receive your book in a couple of days if its status is not "Shipped"!! The one positive here is that you have a record of your chat - that is much more useful evidence than your recollection of a phone conversation.

Definitely sounds like it's not coping, like Esther said. They should at least know if it has been shipped or not. Do you get your shutterfly books from America? I know the last few I've ordered have come from New Zealand, so I'm presuming they have a printing lab in NZ also. Maybe that's why they don't know if it's shipped or not.

But my underlying thought when she kept saying Monday, was perhaps she's on a day off on Monday and doesn't have to deal with your query again! (funny, but not).

Therese, I hope you get your answers, totally unacceptable customer service from a company who prided themselves on it. And lets face it, that's a lot of books you've ordered and in turn a lot of money you've sunk into that company to receive a non-answer.

Thanks, Everybody!!! I just needed to get this off my chest. I have a feeling Hitesh is not in the US at all, but in a "call-center" in India or something...
Hitesh is not what bugs me the most - it's the fact that they're not responding to the e-mails I've sent through their support system! I even have control codes for them!

I have had many interactions with their customer service and have had a mixed bag of results. I have found that when a solution is obvious (like reprinting a poorly bound or off-color book), they jumped at the chance to make it right. With technical questions, I had a much harder time. And I do not want to open a can of worms but when you get a call center outside the U.S., outside the brick-and-mortar company itself, the quality of customer services goes downhill fast. I have nothing against call centers, but if you are not there in the hub, where the product is being made, it is hard to communicate with the different departments. I can understand your frustration. They are repeating the phrase they have in their call center SOP (standard operating procedure), and they can't deviate because they are incapable of solving that type of problem.

It almost sounded like an automated answering service. The worst I have seen. Have you posted to their facebook page on Shutterfly - didn't see a post there: https://www.facebook.com/shutterfly?fref=ts. That should probably prompt them to answering you as they do not want bad feedback on their Facebook page and that they are not replying to their incoming emails is one

It almost sounded like an automated answering service. The worst I have seen. Have you posted to their facebook page on Shutterfly - didn't see a post there: https://www.facebook.com/shutterfly?fref=ts. That should probably prompt them to answering you as they do not want bad feedback on their Facebook page and that they are not replying to their incoming emails is one

It's gone... that is horrible. They remove negative feedback and let positive stay. At seminars I have attended regarding Facebook and businesses, they always say that you should give prompt reply to negative feedback. But removing it so people can not give negative feedback - terrible.
Well, I guess I will not buy any Shutterfly photobooks either as I planned since they are having all these discounts all the time.

It's gone... that is horrible. They remove negative feedback and let positive stay. At seminars I have attended regarding Facebook and businesses, they always say that you should give prompt reply to negative feedback. But removing it so people can not give negative feedback - terrible.
Well, I guess I will not buy any Shutterfly photobooks either as I planned since they are having all these discounts all the time.

Well, my purpose with posting all of this here was NOT to persuade anyone to stop ordering from Shutterfly!
I've been very happy with them and their quality in the past...
But the way they're avoiding me and the problem right now is making me seriously angry.

I've ordered about 25 12x12 books and 10 8x8 books with Shutterfly over the years, but as soon as this matter is resolved, I'm deleting my account with Shutterfly and will definitely go Blurb!

Well, Shutterfly got back to me via Facebook (!!!) Monday, October 1st.
Telling me how sorry they are, but they can see that my book is just coming out of production that very same day.
They keep referring to the high level of customer service requests lately as an excuse for not getting back to me in a timely manner.
They're also saying that the minute they ship it to me, they will refund the entire shipping cost ($85) to me.

Now, first of all - I still don't know why production has not finished my book in a timely manner?
And secondly - it's October 3rd today, and my book is still "In Production" according to my account...

So sorry you have trouble with Shutterfly also! (I've used them in the past, but had issues also.) I have heard good reviews re: Blurb, but I don't see a "lay flat" book available, so I was going to try Adoramapix which also had good reviews. Has anyone used Adoramapix?

So sorry you have trouble with Shutterfly also! (I've used them in the past, but had issues also.) I have heard good reviews re: Blurb, but I don't see a "lay flat" book available, so I was going to try Adoramapix which also had good reviews. Has anyone used Adoramapix?

I have used Adorama and loved their lay flat album... beautiful. A little pricier than Shutterfly but in my opinion the quality was far superior.